First day at Stagecoach a mix of stellar performances, big-name stars and tender moments

The three-day country music festival Stagecoach is certifiably huge — 55,000 enthusiastic fans, top-name country music acts and a venue so spread out you could work off your pulled pork sandwich just walking back to your car.

But what defines the Stagecoach experience are also the small moments. Here's a look at some.

SINGING PRAISE

As excited as fans are to attend, performers clearly love being at the extravaganza held in the desert at Indio's Empire Polo Club. Newbies and veterans alike showed the audiences some festival love.

"I'm at Stagecoach!" up-and-comer Maggie Rose exclaimed, as she kicked off Friday's first show of the day on the Mane Stage.

As night fell, Norah Jones, playing with her country side project, The Little Willies, looked out at the camera-snapping crowd at the Palomino Stage with awe.

"I don' think I've ever seen so many hats in an audience in my whole life — and it's not even sunny any more," she said to applause. A few songs into her set, after being cheered for her vocal and piano bravado, Jones let out a squeal: "This is fun!"

Hayes Carll, from Austin, said his career had taken him around the world. Or at least around the bar circuit.

"I don't usually get to play gigs this cool," Carll said. "Usually I play places with a mechanical sheep — in the dressing room."

Stagecoach also provided legendary country crooner Connie Smith and her band with a career first. With 48 years in the business and 53 albums under her rhinestone belt, Smith has played in countless clubs, arenas and honky tonks.

The lead guitarist in her band The Sundowners thought he had seen it all, until he looked out into the grassy area right off the Palomino Stage.

"I've been with Connie going on 24 years," Rick Wright chuckled. "I've never seen anyone hula hoop to one of your songs — in a bikini!

FANS ALIKE

Performers feed off the crowd's energy while onstage; offstage they fade into the background and turn into music lovers like everyone else.

Singer Robert Ellis, whose simple early set consisted of a man on a stool with a guitar, said he was most looking forward to Friday's main attraction, headliner Toby Keith. Ellis was later spotted in the crowd for The Little Willies.

Keith, for his part, said he was a big fan of Trace Adkins, who had performed a few hours earlier. Closing out his set with the anthemic "Red, White and Blue," Keith did what superstars can do: he brought Adkins out with him.

Connie Smith asked her audience if they planned to see Marty Stuart on Saturday, because she sure wouldn't miss his show. Whistles, applause and knowing laughs followed. Stuart and Smith have been married for 15 years.

LYRIC MAN

Austin-based Hayes Carll, backed by his six-piece band of hipster Texas twangers, got his audience two-stepping with his beat and laughing with his lyrics.

"Boy, you 'aint a poet, just a drunk with a pen," one song went.

"There must be something missing, my mama told me I should have gone into easy listening."

And while nearly every performer Friday paid tribute to George Jones, perhaps his spirit was most alive in Carll's song title "Bad Liver and a Broken Heart."

LEADING LADIES

Country's bad boys and wild men — Adkins, Keith and Hank Williams Jr. — generated the most hype for Stagecoach's first day, but the women stole the show.

Smith, "The Sweetheart of the Grand Ole Opry," soared with her crystal-clear, Patsy Cline-like vocals, no more so than on the aching ballad, " 'Aint You Even Gonna Cry." She moved a few to tears.

And the single best performance of the day was Norah Jones' hauntingly beautiful rendition of "Jolene." Breathy and vulnerable, yet commanding, Jones held he audience rapt until her final exclamation of "Thank you, Dolly!"